The White Mountain (23 page)

Mary jammed the keys into the
ignition, cranked, and thrust her foot on the gas pedal.  Lurching ahead, the
car sped full-bore down a foreign stretch of road, past the familiar
cookie-cutter office buildings they’d cruised by on the way in earlier.  The
engine roared, picking up speed.  Bricks and landscaping melding into a brown
and green blur in her peripheral vision.  She had no idea where the road might
lead; her initial instinct was to get as far away as possible, as fast as she
could, before Billy had a chance to go for his gun and fire off rounds from her
rear.  Would there be an outlet?  Would there be side streets she could take
back to the highway?  Would it trap her in a dead end?

She couldn’t risk it.  There
were too many escape-ending possibilities.  She would have to get past Billy,
somehow.  It wasn’t safer, but it was a better option than getting lost inside
a web of crosshatched streets that possibly led nowhere, through a series of
structures that looked exactly like the next one and the one after that. 

“Shit!”  She hit the brakes
and frantically spun the steering wheel, whipping the car around, squealing
tires to head back the direction in which they entered.

Car aright, pointing true,
pointing straight, she floored the gas pedal.  Ahead, fifty yards distant,
Billy was upright, moving across the road.  He stooped, grabbing at something
at his feet.

The gun!  He’s getting his
gun!

Billy planted himself in a
proper shooting stance.  One foot slightly in front of the other, a shoulder
angled toward his target.  Knees bent.  Elbows bent.  Low profile.

Mary ducked as the first
bullet blasted through the windshield, leaving a quarter-sized hole and slivers
of cracks crawling through the glass.  A second one followed, and then a third.

By the time she was upon him,
swerving left and right to hinder his aim, five shots had missed her.  Bullet
holes situated in random spots around the windshield allowed thin streams of
forced air inside, stinging her eyes, blowing her hair in her face.  Hurtling
to her left, she tugged the steering wheel to her right, angling toward Billy,
praying that her aim was sufficient, intending to plow over him with her two
thousand pound battering ram.

He fired once more.  The
bullet
pinged
off the hood.

He jumped.

Mary missed.

She spewed a volley of curses
and slapped the dashboard.  Contemplated throwing the car into reverse and
trying again.

Go.  Just go.

Stay low.  You don’t want
a bullet in the back of your head.

Two more shots from behind. 
One through the rear window, one eliminating her side mirror.

Then there were no more.  Was
he out of bullets?  Is he out? 

How many rounds was that?

Two into Herb, two more at
the house, seven into the car.

Eleven?

Depending on the
type
of magazine, he could’ve had more.  Whatever the case, whether he was out or
chose not to fire any more wasted rounds, the point was, there were no more
bullets turning the car into a block of metallic Swiss.

And she’d done it.  She’d
escaped.  Freedom.

But what next?

Dread settled over her as a
realization broke through the erratic, mind-numbing mess of the last couple of
hours.  Just because she had liberated herself didn’t mean she was safe.  It
didn’t mean Randall was safe, nor Alice and Jesse.  Not even Jimmy.  For the
moment she was, maybe for the next few minutes or even days, but ultimately the
implications reached far beyond her immediate reality.

This wasn’t a situation that
one could leave behind, like a heated altercation over a parking spot or a
minor scuffle at a football game, where you could shake it off, calm down with
a glass of wine or a cold beer on the couch.

No.  Nothing that simple. 
Herb Richmond, brother of the First Lady, was dead.  Her fingerprints were all
over his kitchen and living room.  The enormity of that realization was mind-blowing. 
One phone call from Billy, if he actually had the connections he purported, and
her face would be all over the national news.  It didn’t matter that she was
innocent.  It didn’t matter that she’d
seen
Billy do it.  It didn’t
matter what she knew about an underground game of murder, funded by Richmond
Steel.  It didn’t matter that Billy, Herb Richmond, and some mysterious third
member were involved in its execution.  She’d be framed for the murder of a close
member of the First Family, which meant life in prison or more than likely, the
death penalty.

No amount of pulled strings
from the best lawyers in the nation would be able to save her.

Running would do her no
good.  It was useless.  Pointless.

The net cast to contain her
would extend over the whole country.  She’d have no place to go, ever.  Eventually,
after days on the run, a couple of weeks at best, she’d be trapped in some
remote cabin with police and news helicopters hovering overhead while a
tactical team waited outside, firing gas and smoke grenades through the windows
until she surrendered, or took the easy way out by wrapping her mouth around a
gun barrel.

It’s over
, she thought. 
My life’s over.  I’ll
never see Jimmy again.  What will happen to Randall?  Is it over for him, too? 
Yes.  He’s dead.  Just a loose end.  We’re dead.  We’re
both
dead, no
matter what happens.

What should I do now?  Can
I make it home?  Can I at least see Jimmy one last time?  I have to try.

First, she had to warn
Randall, had to call and tell him to turn around, to go back home.  It wouldn’t
change anything, big picture, but at least it’d give him a head start and give Alice
and Jesse more time with him before whatever came next. 

He was the root of the
problem, the fuse on the exploding bomb that her life was about to become, and
she was furious with him on an unnatural level, but he didn’t deserve to march
in front of the firing squad unprepared and unwarned.  However misguided the
intent, however utterly insane the decision to participate, he’d been trying to
do something right for his family.  Yes, he’d lied to her.  Yes, he’d tricked
her into helping with something that would lead to her eventual demise, whether
in a shower of gunfire or strapped to a table while some guy in a lab coat
injected potassium chloride into her veins.

But she could’ve said no.  If
she’d only pressed him harder, or refused for longer, he might’ve given in and
told her the real reason, and she would’ve
known
to say no. 
Immediately. 

And it wasn’t completely his
fault.  Not entirely.  Billy had tricked him, whom Randall had assumed was a
friend.

If
this,
but
that.

Her last selfless act would
be to give him more time with his family, while she’d try desperately to get
back to hers, back to Jimmy.

Second, she had to change
cars, had to get back to the hotel and her hatchback.  Driving over three
hundred miles back to Smythville, in a car riddled with bullet holes, would
make it impossible to stay undetected.  She’d be less conspicuous if she were
speeding along in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. 

Shit, I can’t even do
that.  I can’t drive through the middle of Falls Church in this thing.  I’d get
pulled over just on principle, even if they weren’t looking for me yet.  I’ll
have to steal one somewhere.

All of these thoughts
careened through her head as she sped away from Billy.  Two hundred yards,
three hundred and onward to the first turn she needed to make, a quarter of a
mile away.

Mary approached, slowed to
ease into the right turn, and then squealed to a stop as two massive, black,
tinted-window SUVs swerved in front of her.

CHAPTER 22

Randall pulled into a gas
station and sidled up to the pumps, a couple of miles from the last known location
of Mary’s GPS signal.  The blue light had ceased pulsating thirty minutes
earlier on his way in, speeding down I-66, urging the old truck to hold it
together for just a little bit longer.  A strange knock clattered about under
the hood and the smell of burning oil penetrated the cab.

When he’d checked last, the
address was somewhere within an industrial park, at an HVAC company office, and
had remained in the same spot for two hours, if not more.   It didn’t make any
sense, unless she was chasing a random lead that had led her to an office
building and she’d gotten caught up in a lengthy conversation.  Hoping for the
best, hoping that she was only gathering information and not dead in a warehouse,
he tried to imagine whom she could be talking to that might know anything about
Ares’ identity, especially for that long.  If all remained okay, if she was
simply grilling an informant, then he had nothing to worry about.

Yet, the fact that it hadn’t
moved remained troublesome.  Something told him it was more serious than an
extended conversation.  In the middle of an industrial park, position held for
a couple of hours?  It didn’t sit right.

She still wasn’t answering
his calls, which only added to his sense of unease.

He tried her cell again, and
wasn’t surprised when she didn’t pick up.

I know you’re probably
still pissed, but answer, damn you.

That is, if she was able.

He huffed, flung his cell
onto the seat, and got out to refuel.

Fifty dollars in, halfway
full on the massive tank and damning every expensive dollar that clicked over
on the display, his cell rang.

Relieved, thinking,
Finally
,
he checked the caller ID and groaned in disappointment.  He didn’t recognize
the number.  Lately, he’d been getting a lot of calls for surveys after
purchasing a new riflescope online, and he almost chucked the phone back inside
the cab.  But, on the slight chance that it could be Mary calling from an
office phone, or someone else’s, he answered with a hesitant, “Mary?”

A male voice said, “Confirm
your identity.”

“What?”

“Confirm your identity.”

Randall recognized the
voice:  it was Chuck.  “Chuck?  That you?  Where’s Mary?”

“I repeat, confirm your
identity.”

“Randall Blevins.  What the
hell’s going on?”

“Confirm your code, White
Mountain.”

“My code?  What code?”

“In the debrief, with the
other contestants.  You were given an individual completion code.  Confirm it.”

Randall leaned up against the
truck bed.  He remembered the string of numbers given to him by Enigma that
day.  The completion code would only be relevant if he were the last man alive
at the end of the game.  The winner was to expect a call and confirmation would
grant him access to Ares and information concerning his whereabouts.

So, he knew what the series
of numbers were for, but he didn’t know how
Chuck
was privy to the
secret.  He recalled his conversation with the former CIA agent, over a number
of beers, remembered giving him details that he probably shouldn’t have, but he
knew for a fact that he’d never mentioned the completion code.  Mentioning it
before it was time was like reading the numbers on a lottery ticket before the
balls were drawn.  It was bad luck.  “How’d you know about that?”

Silence.

“Chuck?”

No response.

“Did y’all find out
something?  Is that how you know about the code?”  When the silence continued,
Randall’s frustration bubbled.  “I know who Ares is, man.  It’s big.  So big. 
We’re all in a lot of shit if this gets out.  I mean, I don’t even—look, chief,
I don’t have time for this.  I’ll explain it later.  I hightailed it all the
way up here to track Mary down, because she ain’t answered her phone for going
on twenty-four hours now.  I need to talk to her a minute, if she’s there.  Put
her on for me.”

“Confirm.  Your. 
Code
.”

“Goddamn it, Chuck!  It’s
eighteen, forty-eight, twenty-two, six-zero-zero-six.  You satisfied?  You
called my phone, and there ain’t but a handful of people that know what the
number is.  It’s me, you know it’s me, now
let me talk to Mary
.”

“Code confirmed.”

There was a pause, followed
by, “Randall?”

Mary’s voice.

“Auntie Lamb!  Holy shit,
girl, you had me worried half to death.  Answer your damn phone once in a
while, wouldja?  Scare the shit out of a man, pulling a stunt like that.”

“They want me to tell you
something.”

“
They?
  What?  Whose
they?  You don’t sound like—”

“Run, Randall!  Go home! 
It’s Chuck!  Chuck is—”

“Mary?  Mary!”  Randall paced
beside the truck.  “Chuck is what?”

Chuck again:  “The name’s
Billy, actually.”

“
Billy?
  The hell are
you talking about?”

“Congratulations on your
survival, Randall.  I don’t know how you took out some of those guys, but good
job.  You’ve earned the right to meet Ares.  Or, well, what’s left of him.”